Country music singer Trace Adkins performs on stage for those gathered at a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at Expoland in Fishersville on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012.

Written by

People from all over Virginia traveled, sat in traffic and stood in the heat to see GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan speak in Augusta County.

Ninety minutes before the start of the campaign rally, traffic on eastbound I-64 had already backed up five miles to I-81 in Staunton. Fifteen minutes before the rally was slated to begin, the logjam of vehicles had spread onto northbound I-81, stretching for nearly three miles.

Kathy Whitten of Richmond, wearing a Sarah Palin-signed straw hat with a Romney-Ryan sticker, had to park two miles away and walk to the rally ...